Different lead-time time trade-off variants should be carefully studied in order to achieve the best measurement of health-state values using this new method. </AbstractSection> Copyright The Author(s) 2013

Three groups of hydrate-bearing sediment samples with/without underlying gas were prepared using a three-dimensional middle-size reactor to investigate the favorable conditions for methane recovery from hydrate reservoir with gaseous CO2. The experimental results indicated that hydrate reservoir...

For inequality constrained optimization problem, we show the existence of local saddle point of generalized augmented Lagrangian under weak second-order sufficient conditions which are weaker than the second-order sufficient conditions in the literature. We further discuss the existence of...

For inequality constrained optimization problem, we show the existence of local saddle point of generalized augmented Lagrangian under weak second-order sufficient conditions which are weaker than the second-order sufficient conditions in the literature. We further discuss the existence of...

Natural gas hydrates are cage-like crystalline compounds in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming solids at low temperature and high pressure. Natural gas hydrates are widely distributed in permafrost regions and offshore. It is estimated that...

The concept of a vertical-axis spiral wind rotor is proposed and implemented in the interest of adapting it to air flows from all directions and improving the rotor’s performance. A comparative study is performed between the proposed rotor and conventional Savonius rotor. Turbulent flow...

This research analyses the determinants of demand for medical services in urban areas of Bolivia. It also examines the possible trade-offs between cost recovery and the use of health services for different age, sex, ethic, and income groups. The data are from the third year of the Encuesta...

Models which estimate influenza mortality probably overestimate this mortality because their baseline estimates include only nonepidemic weeks. We present a stochastic frontier estimation model which better reflects influenza mortality.

This article estimates a partially linear model that permits non-linearities of unspecified form in the school quality-earnings relationship. It examines the joint effect of teacher education and pupil-teacher ratios on 1990 earnings using NLSY data. It finds some evidence of non-linearities in...

Zellner and Ryu examined several popular specifications of elasticity of scale that characterizes production functions. This note goes further by combining these functional forms and proposing a model-averaged estimator of elasticity of scale. The methodology used in Bayesin Model Averaging, and...